Yes, the U.S. forces in Iraq have finally left allegedly closing the book on a very interesting little war. Whether the U.S. should have gone there is outside of the scope of this blog, however, the cost of this boondoggle is going to have to be paid for generations to come and that along with our friends in Europe could keep us all living on tenterhooks (econimically speaking) for at least the next year. The biggest question I have is when did Iraq become IRack? I think I finally get the Peking to Beijing change but when did the I in Iraq become a long sound? Yes, not the most important part of the whole conflict, but to me it’s an interesting question.

With Christmas coming up, I also will be publishing my 2000th post somewhere in the next little while as well. That kind of astounds me that I have written that much, I guess I should really look at all of this and see if it could be edit’ed down into a more useful format, we’ll see.

Preparations for Christmas were first in my mind this week as can be seen from the odd cross section of post themes chosen:

• Hark! And then Harold Angel Sings I went through my tweets for the week and discuss the European Unions imminent demise.
• I have heard differing comments on TFSA Limits don’t rise (again) about whether this is a cumulative indexing or not, I think it isn’t.
• Some good news did come this week Dell does finally deliver both a system and a refund too.
• Had a bit of a writer’s block on Wednesday so went silly with snappy answers to financial questions
• ‘Tis the season to quote Dickens and finance revisited finding an old chestnut in my earlier writings about Debt

And thanks to those who added me on Twitter I am now over 960 folks who follow me, wow!

Can we make it to a Santa Rally this year? I really think that we may have to wait for a recovery into well into 2012, but other writers may disagree:

• Canadian Couch Potato gives us the timeless harmony of a balanced portfolio, that is very Zen, and very cool.
• Larry MacDonald has a look at what is happening in the European Union and is not sure he likes what he sees.
• Michael James is looking for a better way to explain investing costs so that there isn’t as much misunderstanding by investors.
• Canadian Capitalist points out that if you are feeling the MER blues you should vote with your wallet that way it will be a less Blue Christmas.
• Sandy at Yes I am Cheap is in a giving mood with her 15th day of Christmas giveaway and freebies, ho, ho, ho…
• Our happy finance hombreMy Own Advisor starts wrapping up 2011 with a list of the Top Canadian REITs, end of year is coming, watch for those top 10 lists!
• Echo of Boomer and Echo wonders is a long commute destroying your job satisfaction? Good question, it don’t make things better, that is for sure.
• Mike at Money.Smarts makes the statement Canadian Tire Mastercard Rewards Card — A Strange Duck hope it doesn’t quack too much.
• Frugaltrader at MillionDollarJourney realizes it is near year end and gives us tax considerations for self-employed people.
• Miss T. at PrairieEcoThrifter makes some suggestions on how to lose weight in a healthy way which all of us worry about over the Holidays.
• Our old friend Miranda writes at Sustainable Personal Finance about donations to charity: how to decide where to give because there are a lot of folks looking for money right now.
• Miranda actually has her own money blog now too Planting Money Seeds, where she confesses about violating a personal finance rule: she just bought a new car! We’ll forgive her for now.
• Preet who seems to be on TV more than Santa these days, had a guest post by Tusk Trader about the Christmas Season has witches? well maybe not them in specific but witching hours that is for sure!

Other Bookkeeping

Remember my RSS feed is available too, for those who enjoy reading without looking at my crappy page lay out, and I have added an RSS Comment Feed as well.

Have alook at my micro-blog on Twitter, where you can see a whole plethora of good articles and pithy comments by me as well. Twitter feed where I re-tweet many great articles by some of my featured writers (and make the occasional odd or off colour commentary on life (in 140 characters or less)). I am also on Digg as Big Cajun Man, on reddit, Tumblr and other Social Media sites (look for the BigCajunMan userid) as well.

If you have social media accounts, don’t forget to vote for my posts (see the nifty dashboard on the bottom of each article, where you can cast your votes). As they say in Quebec, vote early and vote often!

This site is iPhone Friendly (and Android , iPod Touch and iPad Friendly), enjoy it on the go, in a readable format for the device. If you are reading with an iPhone or Android device, drop me a comment and tell me if this needs any improvements. This site is also in the Kindle US Blog list, if you are interested, not available in Canada yet (because no Blogs are available in Canada on a Kindle?!?).

Remember

“If a blogger disappears off the Web, does anybody care? ”

Author: Unknown (but badly paraphrased from Bruce Cockburn)